This article originally appeared on Dr. Perlmutter’s website.
To this day, you still see products in grocery stores labeled, “low fat” as if this somehow translates into meaning the product is more healthful. Obviously the manufacturers of these products feel that there still is enough consensus in terms of the public’s perception that low fat is a good thing. So they persist in perpetuating this myth in order to sell product.
Nowhere is the idea that lower fat consumption more off base than when this idea is exploited in the context of weight loss. Virtually every weight loss product and program clings to the outdated notion of fat restriction being the key to weight loss as well as heart health, and nothing is further from the truth.
In the September 2nd issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, Tulane University researchers published a report, titled Effects of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets, A Randomized Trial, in which they evaluated weight loss and various cardiovascular risk factors in a group of 148 men and women without cardiovascular disease.
During the course of the study, one group ate a low carb diet defined as limiting carbohydrates to 40 grams or less each day. The others ate the time-honored low fat diet in which daily fat consumption was limited to less than 30% of daily calories.
At the completion of the study, in comparing the two groups, those eating the low-carb diet with lots of dietary fat experienced dramatically more weight loss, more reduction of body fat, lower triglycerides, and remarkably higher HDL.
Here’s the conclusion of the study:
The low-carbohydrate diet was more effective for weight loss and cardiovascular risk factor reduction than the low-fat diet.
Keep in mind this is coming from the Annals of Internal Medicine, arguably one of the most well-respected, peer-reviewed, scientific, medical journals on the planet. With such powerful science, why does there remain so much misunderstanding about the nature of what should be considered healthful in terms of our food choices and specifically regarding what type of diet will favor weight loss?
My mission is simply to keep all of my readers up to date in terms of what unbiased science is revealing.
